March 2, 2016

Tone it Down!

Sometimes I imagine that Democrats banded together in secret and decided to disseminate the idea to broader liberal groups to have Democrats register as Republicans and vote for Trump in an effort to disrupt the Republican primaries and get Donald Trump to end up the nominee. After all the numbers of Republican primary voters have been surprisingly high this cycle. Yes, there are a lot of disgruntled Americans who want to fix the country. Yes there was a big field of candidates. But in some states the turnout was double that of 2008. Double. A liberal plot just like Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos in 2008 to thwart Hillary Clinton's nomination is not beyond the realm of possibility.

But while that's worth mentioning, it's not what is on my mind right now. The level of panic and vitriol over Donald Trump, and from Donald Trump, needs to ratchet down about 40 notches.

I'm speaking mainly to the anti-Trump crowd right now: Tone it Down. There's a number of reasons that there's no need to panic yet.

(1) Trump only has 25% of the delegates needed to win the nomination. There's plenty of race left.

(2) If Trump turns out to be the nominee, Hillary Clinton is still beatable (less so, but still beatable).

(3) The heated rhetoric will not help your case with Trump voters. It may turn off non-Trump voters. This is especially true if Trump is now starting to tone it down himself.

(4) In due course other candidates will drop out and non-Trump votes will coalesce around the other candidate.A brokered convention is a distinct possibility.

(5) If fewer candidates cannot lead to an alternate delegate leader, guess what - you are no longer the majority within the Republican party. You need to re-evaluate.

Just consider different ways to beat Trump. Either he's unbeatable or he's beatable. Panic and heated rhetoric won't turn the tide.